Effect of Feeding Broken Rice Grains and Decorticated Cottonseed Meal on Feed Efficiency, Ruminal Activity, and Blood Constituents of Early Weaned Buffalo Calves

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Abstract
Thirty-nine female 10-day old buffalo calves were distributed among 5 groups: calves weaned at 120 days on 340 kg whole buffalo milk (control); calves in Groups 2 and 3 were weaned at 45 days and given 103 kg whole milk; and the last 2 groups were weaned at 31 days and given the same quantity of milk. The calves in Groups 2 and 4 were given starter ration 1 (corn, barley, linseed meal and beans). The other 2 groups (3 and 5) were given starter ration 5 (corn, barley, linseed meal, beans, broken rice grain and decorticated cottonseed meal). Ration 1 stimulated significantly better growth and gave a higher feed efficiency than ration 5 when calves were weaned at 45 days. Calves weaned at 31 days in general, were inferior in size to those weaned late or at 45 days. The results of rumen microbial activity and blood constituents showed: ammonia N concentration was higher at 2 weeks and decreased to 8 weeks of age; total VFA [volatile fatty acid] increased with age up to 6-12 weeks and was higher in groups fed ration 1; microbial N was significantly higher in the rumen of early weaned calves than in late weaned calves, microbial N decreased with age; blood urea and ammonia N were highest at 2 weeks of age and decreased to 6-10 weeks. Some parallelism was noticed between changes in ammonia N in the rumen and blood urea and ammonia N; and blood reducing sugars and hemoglobin decreased to 8 weeks of age. The blood reducing sugars of early weaned calves were lower than that of the late weaned calves.

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